April 9th, 2026

The SACCO industry continues to play an important role in the Kenyan economy through mobilisation of savings for national development and provision of credit facilities to many household economies. By the end of 2024, there were 355 Regulated Saccos made up of 177 Deposit Taking Saccos (DT-Saccos) and 178 Non-Withdrawable Deposit Taking Saccos (NWDT-Saccos).

The financial performance of regulated SACCOs measured and monitored on the basis of total assets, gross loans and total deposits, all recorded significant growth in 2024 with the total assets growing at an impressive 10.72 percent which was the highest recorded increase over the last five years, to cross the trillion mark for the first time and reach KShs 1.076 trillion.

However, SACCOs face various challenges in responding to a highly competitive financial sector: high technology costs and fragmented systems; liquidity and investment constraints; limited access to national payment infrastructure; and rising compliance and governance demands.

To address these issues, the SACCO regulator, the Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (SASRA), spearheaded the development of a shared services model. This concept has been evidenced in several markets around the world to help address the dilemma created by the costs associated with compliance, competition, and efficiency of Saccos. The legal entity established to handle this, Sacco Central Kenya (SCK), was established in 2018 as a member-owned secondary cooperative. SCK’s mandate is to develop a unifying platform that enables SACCOs to pool resources, expertise, and innovation

In 2024, with support from FSD Kenya, SCK developed a strategic plan and implementation roadmap to operationalize its vision.  The strategic plan identified 3 key areas to be addressed in the first phase of operationalisation: (i) a shared core banking system, (ii) inter-SACCO payments and direct participation in the National Payments System (NPS) and (iii) inter-SACCO lending services. Steady progress has been made so far. An FSD-seconded Project Director is in place to lead in the operationalisation of SCK as well as manage all project implementation activities. A small support staff has also been onboarded by SCK to drive membership and provide project administration support. In addition, the World Bank has provided three consultants to develop the requirements, design the architecture, and support the procurement and implementation of the pilot use cases. The year ended with a series of regional workshops around the country that were attended by SACCOs. In the workshops, the vision of SCK was recast and the implementation roadmap was shared.

The planned milestones for 2026 are to complete the detailed requirements and technical architecture then followed by the implementation and rollout of the pilot use cases. The project is large and complex due to the number of entities SCK is expected to serve, the various states of digitisation of the various SACCOs. All these issues expose various risks and challenges that need to be managed closely over the multi-year project.

Expected outcomes on the SACCO shared services platform include more wholistic financial services (payments, lending, savings), stronger liquidity support, and more affordable digital services. Long term expected impact includes more inclusivity of women, youth and SMEs, better financial health of SACCO members that have a high percentage of farmers and low-income households, and long-term sustainability of SACCOs.

TAGS

CATEGORIES